Video transcoding is a widely used term throughout the broadcast industry. In today’s market environment there are plenty of discussions centered towards provisioning content for multi-screen applications; however there are also valuable applications for video transcoders in existing broadcast chains. As always with many different use cases come many different feature sets and many different products.

Video transcoding products fall into three primary categories;

Real-time/linear broadcast

Real-time/linear adaptive

File-based adaptive

Across the industry you might also hear terms such as software vs. hardware transcoder. To add to the confusion, in adaptive streaming, there are different video and packaging technologies being deployed to match different receiving devices. These devices may support Flash, another only supports Apple’s HLS, and still others leverage Microsoft’s smooth streaming technology.

In broadcast applications transcoding is typically reserved for converting one codec to another and transrating the same codec from one bit rate to another. An example of transrating might be converting H.264 HD content at 10 Mbps to H.264 HD content to 8 Mbps.

Sencore plans to share more about what different transcoder options are available and how they fit into a given operation by partnering with TV Technology on November 16th, 2011 for an informative webinar. Learn about the different types of transcoders that are available and their typical use cases. Register today.

Video transcoding is a widely used term throughout the broadcast industry. In today’s market environment there are plenty of discussions centered towards provisioning content for multi-screen applications; however there are also valuable applications for video transcoders in existing broadcast chains. As always with many different use cases come many different feature sets and many different products.